Memory is a funny thing. And it seems to have gotten an even more bizarre sense of humour over the past half decade or so.
I used to have a great memory, being able to recall the names of every actor and every director of all my favourite films, having the names of all the great musicians and bands I love at my fingertips at the odd chance that someone might ask for my opinion or any music recommendations. It hasn’t been quite as reliable of late, some of that being related to certain medical issues that I’ve been recovering from, but some of it might just be my age, and even just the age we’ve been living in, with all the collective insanity of the last five years. All in all, my relationship with and my thoughts about memory have definitely changed and so when I think about it, see references to it in films and hear raps on the theme in music lyrics, I take note and ponder.
And even though it may not be the case, it feels like Glenn Donaldson, frontman and driving force behind The Reds, Pinks & Purples, also seems to have a complicated relationship with memories and nostalgia. His songs (and there are a lot of them of late) mostly sound like they are ruminations on some memory or other, whether explicitly or implicitly, directly through narrative or hinted at through the dreamlike quality of his music. Whenever I put on his records, I know that my mood is going to be quite nostalgic by the end, whether I started out that way or not.
I got into The Reds, Pinks & Purples with their third release, 2021’s “Uncommon weather“, and immediately went digging for more of their tunes. There was already plenty to find and there’s been no lack of new output every year, given that Donaldson has been quite prolific with this project, releasing over 8 albums and just as many (if not more) EPs since his first release in 2019. And the tunes have been consistently great, and consistent in their dream pop sound that hearkens back to heyday of late 80s John Hughes soundtrack material.
“I always said you were the thief
you’ll be a star
with a red guitar
you took from better bands we used to see”
Track two on “You might be happy someday”, the 2020 mini-album by The Reds, Pinks & Purples, is a spritely three and half minute wistful guitar jangle wonder called “Forgotten names”. It’s held together by a jaunty but cheerful drum beat, seemingly content to just hang out, cool for cats, simply drifting in all the reverb, but it’s there to tempt your toes to tap. Donaldson’s voice is typically plaintive, like a memory of a dream faintly remembered from a lemon-light sunny Sunday afternoon nap, the kind where you dip in and out of consciousness, you’ll never know which was which later on. It feels like a song about those people that have made a mark on us, like it or not, something they said or did coming back to haunt us at random moments, even though they may have only passed through our lives for a short time and though their names are long lost to us.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.
Cocteau Twins “Heaven or Las Vegas”: Not only my gateway* to the band but likely also for many others, given that the 6th full-length release by the legendary dream pop outfit was their most commercially successful – more intelligible lyrics from Elizabeth Fraser than usual and a very slight deeper leaning into pop from their typical experimentation were the likely culprits.
Inspiral Carpets “Life”: The debut album by the Manchester quintet was chock full of dance floor ready boppers made distinctive by the singspeak vocals of Tom Hingley and the swirling organs of Clint Boon and it might even have cracked my top 10 had the wonderful standalone single, “Commercial rain”, actually been on this one.
James “Gold mother”: Manchester stalwarts James first came to my attention with this, their third album, albeit a few years late***, but even still, I didn’t fully come to appreciate it until much later, after years of listening to later albums where the large group’s big sound became more fully developed. Nevertheless, a great introduction.
The Lightning Seeds “Cloudcuckooland”: Ian Broudie’s debut album as The Lightning Seeds was britpop before britpop was even a thing – and we know how much I love britpop****… so many great tracks that wouldn’t have sounded out of place at any point during the british alternative boom.
My (life in) music lists 